Hitting high note with cd

WHEN Tahlia McGahey played her soon-to-be-released album to the children at Teddy Bear Child Care Centre, she knew which song would be the first single.

The back button on the stereo was almost worn out by the kids listening to the title track, Not a Day Goes By, over and over again.

It is hard to get tired of one of your own songs, the 23-year-old Terranora singer/songwriter joked yesterday, but she almost did by the end of the day at the centre where she works part-time. If the public like the song and the record as much as the kids, Miss McGahey will be well on the way to achieving her goal of becoming a professional country music musician.

Miss McGahey returned from a 10-day recording session with former Flying Burrito Brothers guitarist John Beland at Austin, Texas, last year with the basics of Not a Day Goes By recorded.

After a few finishing touches at her cousin Rik Conti's Euphoric Productions studio at Tumbulgum to “Australianise” the album, it is ready to be released at 6.30pm this Saturday night at South Tweed Sports Club.

“It was good to go over and do my own stuff,” Miss McGahey said of her latest trip.

“I am pretty happy with the record; we got a pretty good sound out of it. I am aiming to go on tour promoting the CD and keep writing along the way then hopefully snag a deal with a record company.

“I am going to have a lot more of a variety of songs to put together a full album. It would be great to do one overseas; America is where the country market is.”

The launch gig has been a long time in the making after Ms McGahey's career began with a month-long trip to the home of country music, Nashville, Tennessee as a 17-year-old, where she recorded a four-track demo.

“It is really in the past couple of years I have started to get into it and played some local gigs,” she said.

She counts Linda Ronstadt, Tanya Tucker, Trisha Yield and Keith Urban as her influences and says her songs are about “life in general”.

The trip to Austin to play with professional musicians of a high calibre has inspired Miss McGahey to push herself further.

“When you play with those guys you just want to be so much better and impress them,” she said.